On August 6, 1945, 309 first year students
of
the First Prefectural Middle School
were exposed to the A-bombing at school.
Among those who had survived the catastrophe
just after the A-bombing,
only 19 students returned to school
the next
year.

Soon after their return to school,
the surviving students wrote about how they
escaped.
Their memoirs were edited in a booklet,
"Memoirs of the Flight from Our
Collapsed
School."

Later, some of them began to suffer
from
the later disorders of
the A-bomb radiation.

From 1949, five years after the A-bomb, until
now,
as many as ten survivors died of leukemia
or cancer,
which is extremely regrettable.

On behalf of those classmates, who can't
say any more,
we decided to introduce some of their memoirs
on our homepage.

Mr. Mita died just before his graduation
from Hiroshima University in the spring of
1955.
A newspaper said that he was the first
victim
of the A-bombing in l955. Here is his
written
memoir about how he escaped.

・・・・・That detestable bomb was dropped. However,
I had no memory about when it was dropped
or how the scenery changed. When I
came to,
I was surrounded by flames, and I thought
I had only a ten to one possibility
to survive.

At the time, I was completely confused
in
a daze, and I lost energy to walk on
my own.
I couldn't do anything except wait
for death.
I chose places which hadn't caught
fire,
snuck between trees and was prepared
to face
the damnable flames. Soon, however,
I fell
down and lost my consciousness. When
I came
to, I found the flames above me, and
it was
so hot that I felt as if my whole body
was
burning. Because of the heat, my decision
crumbled. Then I tried to escape with
all
my force, evading the flames and wandering
here and there unconsciously. However
it
was in vain, and my life looked like
it was
hanging on a thread. I had no way to
escape
and writhed in unbearable heat.

Then, some idea flashed in my mind.
I can't
explain what kind of psychological
situation
I was in. Without any certainty, I
staggered
to the left side and found an emergency
cistern.
This water cistern saved my life. However,
I was still in danger. Broken tin roofs,
roof tiles, big wood pieces were whirling
in the air like leaves and, moreover,
I was
surrounded by flames. Hitting around
the
water tank near me, five or six broken
tin
roofs were blown away somewhere, rattling.

Anyway, I survived. The next morning,
two
senior students found me and took me
to the
First Middle School dormitory. During
that
time my consciousness seemed to be
wandering
between normal and abnormal condition.

Later that noon, my cousin came from
Saijo
to take me to the Hiroshima Red Cross
Hospital.
The next day, some relatives took me
back
to Saijo. After three days, I returned
to
my familiar home on a stretcher.

It was followed by another seven months of
new sufferings.・・・・・

He kept struggling with illness, suffering
from hair loss and high fever as well as
serious burns on his face. Finally he came
back to school the next spring. He closed
this memoir with gratitude to his good luck
and the support from other people.

Mr. Uehara, a classmate, worked as a technical
officer of the Self Defense Forces for several
years after graduating from Hiroshima University,
and then took over his father's company.
However, he vomited a lot of blood and died
in 1980.
Ｐart of his memoirs reads as follows:

・・・・・After finishing the morning meeting, the
odd number classes went to work at
once,
and the even number classes, including
ours,
went into our classrooms to rest.
Some of the classmates were reading
books
and some were cooling their water bottles
with well water. After a while, someone
came
to tell us that the duty would be soon
shifted
to our class. A few classmates were
looking
out of the windows to see a B-29 which
was
again flying overhead. The students
of Class
14 bundled out of the room. The booming
sound
was heard for several minutes.

For an instant, I felt as if a light
flashed
around the front door of the classroom.
Suddenly
it became bright yellowish white, and
I felt
a warm pressure. Although I was standing
with my back to the front door, I felt
as
if I had been exposed to the light
with my
body toward the front door. I may have
turned
to the front door, getting exposed
to the
light the other way around. However
hard
I may think, I cannot say what my position
was at that time.

The next moment, it was pitch dark
and nothing
could be heard.
Others said they had heard a thud of
explosion,
but I did not hear anything.
My parents' faces passed by in front
of me.
I thought for a moment that I was dying.
Without knowing what I was doing, I
struggled
instinctively. Then I became freer.
Right
in front of me, there was something
like
a tree, and I could manage to wriggle
out
by holding on to it.
I could not see anything and I could
not
tell what anything was at all. After
a while,
broken pieces of houses came falling
with
noises.

I wandered around. I saw a friend on
the
way. Both of us went to the East Drill
Grounds.
On the way there, I vomited dark-colored
blood. I was intolerably sick and crouched
down. I lost sight of my friend. I
went up
a hill and slept there.

I was trying to go home in Ushita,
crawling,
and on the way, around 3 o'clock I
came across
my father, who was an officer. I was
pleased.
I had been so sick that it was difficult
for me to voice even a word, but all
of sudden
on seeing my father, I began to feel
better.
From around the 20th on, I started
to have
a fever, and my two-month hospital
life started.

Thinking over now, what happened that
day
was beyond imagination.・・・・・

Mr. Harada succeeded his family business
in Hiroshima after he graduated from Doshisha
University. His shop was located in Hondori,
the downtown shopping area of Hiroshima,
which couldn't be more convenient as our
group's information exchange base. He was
working actively as a key member of the group.
In the fall of 1975, 30 years after
the A-bombing,
regrettably he died of lung cancer,
leaving
his wife and children behind. It was
a great
blow to us, too.
He may have left more notes on his
terrible
experiences, but here I'll introduce
a piece
he wrote when he was in middle school.

・・・・・A sudden flash was followed by a boom. At
the same moment, the school building
collapsed
with an enormous rattle. Simultaneously,
I lowered myself between the desks.
Dirt
filled my mouth. When I came to, my
mouth
was filled with mud. I first thought
that
only our school, the First Middle School,
was bombarded, but I was wrong.
Everybody was crying for help. I, too,
cried
loudly, but realized it was not much
help.
I looked for a hole to crawl out of
the desks.
Then I saw a dim light and moved toward
it
crawling. It was a little opening of
the
broken wall, but too small to get through.
I broke the wall in desperation and
got out.

It was darker than a moonlit night
outside.
Fifteen or sixteen classmates, who
had gotten
themselves out, were trying to rescue
other
classmates, so I joined them. One was
already
dead with a fatal cut in his neck,
and others
were barely alive. It was a living
hell on
earth, indeed. Fortunately, I was not
injured,
probably because the window glass had
been
removed. The school building had only
its
framework left, with the roof tiles
and everything
having been blown off.

Townspeople and students who had gone
for
labor service began to appear from
nowhere
with burns all over, completely naked
or
only with their underwear pants.

Before long, a small fire like a bonfire
started to break out every 10 square
meters
or so. Threatened by the fire, my friends
and I tried to flee toward the main
gate,
but the fire was too strong. So we
made a
round by the swimming pool, passing
straight
by the fire and through the graveyard,
and
came to a ditch about three meters
wide.

We saw many girl students under the
poplar
tree of our school grounds who had
fled from
some school.
The ditch was filled with many burned
people.
A crazy cow came dashing toward us.

We were desperate to escape and made
it to
a large street that led to Hijiyama
Bridge.
Flames were shooting out of the building
windows. There were mothers shouting
in search
of their children, and there were people
who passed by yelling something. We
ran and
ran through the fallen houses and electric
polls, and got to the Army Telegraphic
Communication
Corps Building in Hijiyama. There,
we had
some water from a soldier. Since I
had a
headache, I cooled my head. Noon came.
I
lingered there resting myself until
around
four o'clock, and then moved on to
Hiroshima
Station. I wanted to go home, but fires
hampered
me. One of my friends had an aunt living
in Toyota-gun, so we decided to go
there.
We took a bus from Hiroshima Station
to Kaitaichi,
from where we went to Hongo by train.
On
the way I vomited in the train.

After one week or so, I returned to
Hiroshima
and went to the burned ruins of my
house,
where I got information about my parents'
whereabouts. I went to join my parents.

About a week after that, A-bomb disease
began
to affect me, but I survived fortunately.
I believe I was saved thanks to my
parents'
tender care and the fact that lots
of ice
was available. Also, I had a doctor
visit
every day and was given the necessary
treatment
including shots.・・・・・

The following note about the A-bombing and
war was written 25-plus years after this
memoir had been written, when he was in the
prime time of his life, both work and health.

・・・・・I now realize that human thoughts are apt
to change easily. I resolutely thought
in
those days that I would gladly sacrifice
myself, since I believed peace would
never
come unless we defeated the evil enemy.
Then
I came to think that I would oppose
war at
all costs. I witnessed scenes where
people
were terribly burned and died in agony
crying
for water, and thought this was war,
and
war should never be fought again. Now
I find
it difficult to resist the temptation
for
pleasure as I tend to forget such detestable
memories of war and the A-bombing.
However,
now that the memory of the A-bombing
is fading
and the sufferings of war and inhumane
facts
are being forgotten, I am uneasy and
preoccupied
by the thought that human beings might
repeat
the mistakes.・・・・・

A few years after this note was written,
Harada succumbed to the after-effects of
the A-bombing and passed away.
It was regrettable, indeed.

After graduating from the Tokyo National
University of Fine Arts and Music, Mr. Kamioka
was enjoying his career as a graphic designer
and a professor in an art college. Then he
developed cancer in the jaw, but he got over
it, thanks to a successful surgery. After
that he kept going with extraordinary vitality
even though he sometimes felt ill.
Unfortunately, however, he died of
lung cancer
in 1997, 52 years after his exposure
to the
A-bomb.
He contributed his memoir to the anthology
of A-bombed children, "Children
of Hiroshima"
edited by Arata Osada, when he was
a third
year high school student, and as a
graphic
designer he created a lot of works
on the
theme of peace. Here is a note which
he wrote
when he was a middle school student,
not
long after the A-bombing, about how
he had
fled for life from the A-bombed city.

・・・・・The air raid warning was called off, but
I heard the roar of a B-29 bomber.
Some students
didn't seem to care about it because
they
thought it might be just another passing
B-29. Others went out of the classroom
to
the corridor to watch the bomber.

The moment the airplane roar became
faint,
I saw a weird bright red flash of light,
which seemed like burning celluloid.
The
next moment we were all buried under
the
toppled school building.

I fainted momentarily in a strong smell
like
burning sulfur, with lumber and desks
over
my back, feeling wall mud and roof
tiles
falling over us. But I quickly came
to, probably
because I was too upset. Then I crawled
out
of the debris toward the light ahead
of me.

I reached the willow in the school
grounds,
amid groans and howls of death agony.
Upon
looking at me, my schoolmates Mr. Okada,
Mr. Iwata and other students, who were
uninjured
like me, started to recite the Imperial
Rescript
for Servicemen, shouting "Let's
recite
the Imperial Rescript!" We recited
it
gravely with the full depth of our
voices.
Other students coming out of the debris
one
after another, joined us and started
reciting
it lively.
In a while, the smell became stronger.
We
covered our noses and mouths with towels
and moved to the school swimming pool's
deck.
On the way, we heard some students
crying,
"Help!," "Damn, damn!,"
"Have a never-give-up spirit!"
from under the debris in the area of
Class
5 or Class 6 rooms. Answering them,
"We
are going to the main building and
get you
some teachers!" we rushed to the
teachers'
office, which was in the main building.

However, alas, not only the main building
but the entire First Middle School,
our beloved
school, was completely flattened as
far as
I could see. When I went up onto the
swimming
pool deck to look over our school,
I found
a fire rising up at the northern end
of the
school premises where the building
with our
history room was. The fire was spreading
very quickly.

Then I happened to turn my eyes to
my side
and found Mr. Mimura of Class 14 shouting
in tears, "Banzai! Banzai!"
He
didn't seem to notice his shirt and
pants
were burning. I quickly soaked my hand
towel
in the swimming pool water and put
out the
fire on him with it.

Mr. Suzuki of Class 16, one of my neighbors
I usually played with, was burned over
his
entire body. His eyes were terribly
damaged,
and his skin was hanging from his arms
like
sleeves of a Japanese kimono. He was
murmuring,
"I can't see anything."

Mr. Kato of Class 14 was badly injured
in
the head and legs. Although blood was
gushing
from his wounds, he dauntlessly applied
his
gaiters to them to stop the bleeding.

Those of us who were all right and
able to
walk decided to just flee for safety.
Leaving
the swimming pool deck and going through
the graveyard behind the school, we
ran toward
Hijiyama Bridge.

On our way we ran into Mr. Kawanaka
our P.E.
teacher, who had been at the building
demolishing
work site. His entire body was covered
with
burns, and his shirt and pants were
burned
and hanging down from his body. I saw
Jogakuin
Girls' School students, who had been
working
at the same work site as First Middle
School
students. Their entire bodies were
also covered
with burns, and their hair and clothes
were
totally burned, too.

Mr. Taue, and Mr. Nagoshi of Class
13 and
I lost sight of Mr. Kawanaka and other
schoolmates
on the way to Hijiyama. Most of the
students
ran away from the swimming pool toward
Hijiyama,
because Hijiyama looked safe without
any
flames, while Kamiya-cho and Takanobashi
were enveloped in flames.
Both Mr. Taue and Mr. Nagoshi were
burned
over their entire bodies and lost their
eyesight.
So I gave them each my shoulder and
we just
kept walking toward Ujina after crossing
Hijiyama Bridge.
I started to feel terribly sick because
of
some gasses. I threw up many times
and had
difficulty in walking. Then, a truck
came
to us from behind and we were told
to hop
on. We were in seventh heaven and gratefully
hopped on board the truck. We all collapsed
once we were on the truck. I vomited
again.
We were brought to the Army Mutual
Aid Hospital
in front of Koryo Middle School in
Ujina.
Mr. Taue and Mr. Nagoshi, who were
heavily
burned, were quickly sent to the treatment
room, and I was taken by a nurse to
the air-raid
shelter to rest because I didn't have
any
more strength to walk.

The shelter was filled with groans.
I saw
a child who looked more dead than alive
with
his intestines burst out of his stomach,
a man whose face was burned beyond
recognition,
and a woman who looked lifeless having
lost
her arm.

After some rest, I wanted to see how
my two
friends were. So I went out of the
shelter
leaning on a stick.
There was a rumble of a B-29 in the
sky.
This hospital seemed to be the only
one to
have barely survived the bombing. When
I
looked toward Takanobashi, I could
see nothing
but fire and smoke. My two friends
weren't
to be found anywhere in the hospital.
In the hospital I saw Mr. Sugita, who
was
a son of my former teacher. He didn't
appear
injured, like me. He said he had just
been
hit on the lower back very hard, but
he looked
comparatively all right, better than
me.

Around four in the afternoon, I recall,
I
left the hospital with the stick. I
decided
to hurry home. On the way, I had to
jump
into a fire prevention cistern several
times
near Takanobashi and near Meiji Bridge.
Reaching
Sumiyoshi Bridge, I looked over toward
my
house. When I saw a sea of fire there,
I
gave up the idea of going home.

Then I decided to go to Rakurakuen,
where
my grandmother had been evacuated.
Wrapping
rice balls and potatoes, which I was
given
at the hospital earlier, in my hand
towel,
I hurried toward Koi.
I saw many people fleeing toward Koi.
Among
them, I saw a woman burned over her
entire
body, carrying a baby covered with
blood,
and a man completely naked staggering
with
a stick. Those people were all walking
ploddingly
without their shoes, with hair singed
and
disheveled, with burns all over their
bodies,
and naked. It was truly horrible to
see them.

I was given a lot of sea biscuits at
Koi
Station of the Miyajima Line. Wrapping
them
in the towel together with the rice
balls,
I hurried on my way to Rakurakuen.
Because
the streetcars had stopped running,
people
fled toward Miyajima on foot. Around
8:30
p.m., I got as far as Itsukaichi Town
Hall.
There I found people lying on straw
mats.
It seemed that they would spend the
night,
having no place to flee to. After taking
a rest there I set out again. My grandmother
was very surprised to see me when I
arrived
at the house where she had been evacuated.
I told her that our house had gone
up in
flames. She grieved that my family
must have
died.

After he graduated from Kansai University,
Mr. Fujino, a classmate, worked for the Hiroshima
Prefectural office for a long time. However,
after he retired, he died of cancer.
This is the note of how he escaped
from the
A-bombing at that time, written when
he attended
middle school.

・・・・・When I was waiting for my turn for work,
I heard an air-raid warning. It soon
cleared,
but I thought I still heard the sounds
of
aircraft. Very soon after, a very bright
yellow light flashed, and I lost consciousness.

When I came to, it was too dark to
understand
what had happened and too painful for
me
to open my eyes. I had a strange taste
in
my mouth, probably because of some
dirt.
I stayed where I was. After a while,
feeling
nothing, when I looked around I found
a small
hole. Sitting on a desk, I dragged
my body,
which was leaning at a 45-degree angle,
toward
the hole. Then I finally managed to
get out.
There were about 20 or 30 people outside.
However it was still quite dark and
I couldn't
do anything.
I helped my classmates. When I went
to the
swimming pool, I saw many people who
had
been working outside. Most of them
were badly
burned on the upper part of their bodies
and burned skin was hanging from them.

As the sky got a little lighter, one
of my
friends and I escaped from the back
of the
school to Hijiyama Hill. When we arrived
at Hijiyama Hill, it was already light.
Fires
broke out here and there. As my friend
had
a serious injury on his head, I put
gaiters
on it. I was unhurt and well then,
but a
little later I started throwing up
the food
I had eaten that morning. I felt my
energy
draining away. We encouraged each other
and
kept walking with an occasional stop
for
a break. We became so weak that we
could
only walk a couple of meters at that
time,
however we kept walking and staggering
away
from the center of the blast.

I vomited as soon as I drank some water.
Finally I threw up yellow fluid. While
I
was lying down, someone from Niho,
who was
on a bicycle, came up to me. "Aren't
you a student of the First Middle School?"
he asked. "You shouldn't be here."
he said. He then took me to his home
on his
bicycle.
I vomited everything I had eaten in
his house;
I could not help it. His family informed
my family in Aki-Nakano about me. My
mother
came for me and we went home in a car.
When
I arrived home, I could stand a little
better.

I was slowly getting better. By the
15th
of August, I could walk around the
house.
On the evening of the 17th or 18th
of August,
I realized I was losing my hair. I
wondered
why. I washed it, but it got worse.
When
I touched my head, it came out. The
next
day, I had a fever of 39?, which continued
for about fifteen days. Sometimes it
rose
over 40?. While I had a fever, I had
injections
three times a day from a doctor, who
was
one of my relatives. I couldn't eat
anything
and did not know what was happening
to me
at that time. When my fever went down
to
about 38?, my injections were reduced
to
twice a day, which remained until February.

In January, I became well enough to
walk
around the house again. In the middle
of
February, I went back to school. No
one,
including my doctor and family, thought
I
would survive. The person from Niho
who helped
me was looking for his child, who was
in
the same grade as me, a first year
student.
When he found me, he was on his way
back
home alone.・・・・・

Mr. Okamoto, a classmate, passed away of
cancer in 1995, fifty years after the A-bombing.
Let me introduce his memoir, which
describes
how he escaped from the collapsed buildings
of First Middle School

・・・・・The memory of unspeakable and ferocious August
6th, 1945 will burn into our minds
forever.

I left home by bike and then took a
streetcar
to school as usual. We were kept busy,
cleaning
up the demolished houses those days.
Class 11, 13 and 15, out of the six
classes
from Class 11 to 16, went to the demolition
site, and the rest of the classes stayed
at school.
Some were reading books, and others
were
messing around. After a while, the
City gave
an air-raid warning. Until then, it
had been
just like any other day.

Then, we heard the sound of B-29s.
Some of
us tried to go out to see the planes.
I was
leaving my desk. At that moment, a
flash
burst. Seeing that yellowish flash,
I lost
consciousness at the corner of the
classroom.
I didn't know what happened after that.

When I came to, it was dark around
me.
I felt suffocated with something weighing
heavily on my back. It was very quiet,
and
I heard buzzing in my ears. Then, the
buzzing
was drowned out by a voice of "Help!,"
which made me realize a classmate was
under
me.

"It was an air-raid. We were finally
attacked. I'm dying here."
I was bitterly chagrined, feeling like
there
was no turning back anymore. A classmate
was crying out frantically, "Help!"
Another classmate started singing Japan's
national anthem, "Kimigayo."
Mr. Ito, a classmate, and I were cheering
up each other, waiting for someone
to come
rescue us. Then we heard something
spluttering.
Attempting to get out, we moved our
bodies
little by little, and we were so happy
when
we finally saw a faint light from a
gap of
ripped floor boards.
Clawing our way to the light, we found
a
classmate leaning on a chair, bleeding
from
his neck, which dyed the soil under
the floor
dark red. He was making a croaking
sound
without moving an inch.
We managed to get out of the debris
with
lots of scratches. Smoke and dust had
grown
dense outside. All of the roofs of
our school
buildings had fallen to the ground.
Some
students were bleeding from wounds.
Others
were just sitting in a daze with faces
that
didn't look like human beings.
We rescued a few students out of the
debris,
but the time to leave there came. We
fled,
passing by people who looked as if
they had
been tormented by demons in hell. While
climbing
over roofs and gravestones and through
flames
to the street, we saw the most devastating,
brutal sights in the human world. I
can vividly
recall our brave vice-principal pulling
a
wounded student on a two-wheeled cart.

I was able to survive. I cannot help
feeling
sorry for our dead friends, although
fate
decided. We offer our heartfelt condolences
to them.・・・・・